Another World of Dreams-The Escape

Chapter 5 - Flight

Around lunchtime two officers stepped inside the Elf Bosket to take the sack away. It was the same men that had ordered the veterinarian to amputate Volt's leg. They stank of spirits and wobbled sideways as they walked. The blond had a black eye and blood dripped from fresh wounds on the brown-haired man's knuckles. That morning they came drunk to work after a wild night outside the town walls. The vice first officer, Joseph Wilder's former apprentice Jon, determined that they were not presentable enough to move amongst visitors. As punishment they received less dignified assignments for the day.

The officers were strong, and the sack was not heavy. They stood still and quarreled for a while about which one of them would carry the body. In the end, the blond grabbed Kaan's shoulders and the other his feet, oblivious to the fact that the dead elf had lost half a leg.

The two officers stumbled along a small path through a wood out of bounds to the Dream Park's visitors. They tripped several times and dropped the sack to the ground. Kaan bit his lip to not make a sound, but could not avoid twisting. The officers failed to notice the moving corpse, or were at least too woozy to reflect upon the matter.

A stone's throw from the Dream Park's eastern wall lay a compact stone house with a thick chimney. They stepped inside and threw the body bag on a table, then broke into an argument.

"You're afraid of the fire, so I'll light the oven," said the brown-haired while fixing his disheveled ponytail.

"I'm not!" The blond's response came too fast for his words to be credible. "You get to cut the elf's hair and see if he's got any good teeth left. My hands ain't steady enough for such finger work."

Kaan heard them arguing from within the bag. Soon they were close to hitting each other. A better moment would not appear, so he sliced open the fabric with his dagger and stood up. The officers focused on their quarrel and did not notice as he descended to the floor and sneaked up on them, sliding through the room like a vengeful spirit. When he raised the dagger and prepared to charge, the blond turned around and saw him. The men screamed like two scared children at the climax of a ghost story. Their reaction made Kaan hesitate for a second. The officers seized the opportunity and threw themselves out through the door.

It was easy for him to round the men and block the path in front of them. Their rifles leaned against the wall of the house. They could have grabbed the weapons and defended themselves, but the officers had passed through life using only their fists to figure their way out of tough situations. Their unexercised brains did not help them when they needed it, so they lunged themselves at Kaan. As they hit the ground, the elf was already on top of the brown-haired officer, pressing the dagger against his neck. Beside them lay the other with his throat cut, too shocked to realize that he had but a few seconds left to live.

Kaan got to his feet and hovered over the man. He wanted him to experience humiliation, to crawl the way the officers used to make the elves crawl. He wanted the man to believe he had a chance to survive and, instead of giving up, suffer as he bled to death. The officer stood up and put his full strength behind a definitive blow to the elf's head. Kaan leaped forward, his motions so much faster than the man's that they seemed to come from a place where time moved slower. The officer stumbled as his fist made a giant hole in the air. Kaan stuck his dagger into his mouth and the point pierced through whatever was on the inside of the head. A swift death would do. Now was no time for revenge.

He wiped the dagger clean on the dead man's trousers and ran down the hill along the stone wall. It was difficult to escape at the Dream Park's outer border. The wall was high and covered by barbed wire, and the trees near the wall were cut to the ground. Kaan realized that he would have to escape through one of the visitor gates, just like Leon had. He changed his path and walked through the forest towards the side exit. When he glimpsed the gate he sat down with his back against an oak tree and waited. For a moment he considered testing his luck and running for the gate straight away, then the old officer who shot Volt stepped out onto the road. He decided it was best to bide his time.